Monday, 11 May 2015

Robotech RPG Tactics

Gday all,

My mate Spraggy and I have just time traveled back to when cartoons were good!

The 80's!!!

We just finished our first game of Robotech RPG Tactics and I must say what a refreshing game it was. We have both had our fires reignited for beer and pretzels cinematic gaming ,with both of us humming Robotech tunes and acting out cool stuff that happened while the game was in progress.

Spraggy and I had a crack at creating a very (and i stress very) rough - how to play video - showing some of the basic game mechanics and topped it off with a quick battle report.

Have a watch and see if this system is for you.

In the meantime here are a few pros and cons of what we have found so far.

PROS:

Nostalgia and down right cool factor! - I mean who does not want to pilot a Veritech?

Simple D6 system with limited special rules - aiding in quick game flow.

Ingenious command point system to help you pull off some crazy results - much like you see in the cartoons - Again! Who does not want to fly into a middle of a big pack of Battlepods in a Veritech, bit off more than they can chew and just whip it into Battleoid mode doing flips and spins blazing away with a gunpod to resolve said sticky situation?

Ability to use existing terrain sets - DZC buildings and 10/15mm scale terrain features (we cracked out some Flames hills and forests).

Easy army building system - makes use of core (big) and support (small) cards.

CONS:

Minis are quite fiddly to put together and very time consuming. The building instructions are quite hard to use and the sprues are not labeled to aid in construction.

Some rules/stats are not available in the rule book (namely squadron points) this info is only found on the cards.

Lack of a summary sheet in the boxed game to aid in game referencing (We found a few fan made ones that are ok online).

Upkeep and record tracking will be very time consuming and hard without a robust system by players - especially in bigger games (We found it very hard to keep track of what pods were in each squadron and which Veritech was which). This will be easier once painted and the small lip on the back of the mini bases colour or number coded (or both).

Overall the PROS very much out weigh the CONS with this game. It has tournament potential, but with the small player base and how excited we get playing the game thanks to our childhoods - for now at least it will remain our beer and pretzels fun wargame staple!

Cheers for reading - as soon as we get the rest of the minis assembled expect some more!